Below are the memories of a friend of mine, Debbie, who details some things that she went through on that horrific day, and later. When I first read what she wrote, I was very moved, and couldn't help but shed a few tears as I was taken back to that terrible day, and my own memories.
By the way, Debbie's husband Mike, is serving our country in Afghanistan. Your thoughts and prayers for Mike, and for all those who are serving in harms way, will be greatly, and humbly, appreciated.
Thank you, Debbie, for so graciously allowing me to post this here.
And now, Debbie's moving rememberance.
I had gotten up particularly early that day for some reason. I was on my back porch gathering my thoughts for the day when the phone rang. It was my mom, “Debbie! Turn on Fox News – a plane just flew into the World Trade Center!”
I stayed on the phone, stepped through the glass sliding door and was instantly at my television. My mother and I were talking about the first plane that hit, wondering what in the world happened. Was it an accident? Was the pilot drunk or sick? We were just wondering, questioning each other while we were watching the tower burn. It seems like it was no time and together we watched the second plane plow into the second tower. We were dumbfounded. I remember we both screamed. That time I ran into the bedroom and woke up my husband, who had not been in bed very long. He came out and we watched it together: the flames, people jumping from the buildings and the towers falling down. I remember watching that big cloud of dirt and debris chasing the people down the street that were running for their lives. I remember seeing the police and the firemen running into what would ultimately be their deaths, instead of running away like I’m pretty sure I would have done. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m a coward like that. I’m sure my first inclination would be to run like hell. I remember being in awe at how they did that.
At some point, my mother and I hung up and my husband and I just sat there and watched it all day. I remember I went through many emotions that day, but I didn’t cry. It was a long, long time before I cried.
The next evening my husband came to me and told me he had something he wanted to talk to me about. We sat in the family room and he told me that he wanted to join the Army again, but was pretty sure they wouldn’t take him. So he decided he would try the National Guard. Mike was almost 46 years old the day he told me he wanted to rejoin. I asked him why he wanted to do that. He said, “Deb, we’ve been attacked. We’ll be going to war and I want to do my part. I’ve trained for half my adult life for war and now it’s time to use that training.” I was so numb from emotion that I could barely speak. But I did manage to say, “I understand. If that’s what you want to do, then I support you 100%.”
He had to lose a LOT of weight before the National Guard would take him – almost 80 pounds. I had watched his weight seesaw back and forth for 21 years, but I had never seen him so determined. He lost the weight and in June 2002 he threw up his right hand and swore to protect and defend the United States of America.
I said I didn’t cry for a long, long time. At that time I worked for my church doing volunteer administrative work at home. I made tracts, kept the church directory and miscellaneous typing/computer things – just little things like that. About a week before the 1st anniversary of 9-11, the church secretary called and asked me if I would type 3,000 names so we could put them on little flags to pass out to the congregation. The 3,000 names were the victims of 9-11. It was then that I cried: typing all of those names, one after the other after the other. It’s not that it was not real for me before, but I think I was still just so numb. I remember in June or July wondering, “Why haven’t you cried? Are you that heartless? You haven’t shed a tear.” I wrestled with that for months. Then, once I started crying, I couldn’t stop. All of the anger, frustration, and heart breaking, crushing emotion came forth in a river of tears that I could not stop. I had to force myself to continue typing all those names. I think for every stroke of the keyboard, I shed two tears. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore that day. But I still cry sometimes when I think about it.
I don’t only cry for the victims of 9-11 or their families. I cry for my country as I look around me on the news; people in my extended family and friends that just don’t get it. I cry for the appeasers of Islamofascism and the political correctness of the day.
I stay at home with all of my creature comforts, safe and sound, as my husband is half way around the world defending the rights of Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore and all of the people that would just as soon spit on him as to shake his hand and say anything encouraging to him or his fellow service men and women. Sometimes I lay awake at night begging God to protect him and bring him home safely to me, all in one piece and then I turn on the television or read an article on the internet where Code Pink is protesting our wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Or I get the privilege of seeing Jesse Jackson sucking up to a monster like Hugo Chavez, while calling our President a racist. And then I get to see Cindy Sheehan trashing the memory of her brave son and trying her damndest to make all those brave men and women that have died in Iraq to have died in vain. Yes. They all have that right and I will not deny them that right. But I have the right to be as mad as hell over it, too, and to think of them as traitors and appeasers.
I am not a warmonger. I abhor violence. But I believe there are things worth fighting for and 9-11 was certainly one of those times.
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